The sour is in the cut
by callmesandy
Summary: Sequel to Grow Up Near Lakes. Joey is really upset that Pacey is attractive all of a sudden.


Not mine, no profit garnered. For the tropebingo spot accidental stimulation. Super thanks A! Title from the national's demons. Sequel to grow up near lakes - Joey went to France, Jen and Dawson stayed together, Pacey was in Maine and is now back. Now you're caught up.

* * *

Joey had now spent close to three months feeling completely out of place in the place she grew up. She didn't think coming back from France would affect her that way, but life always had new and exciting ways to torment Joey.

She frowned in her English class. It was just the worst. Joey was the worst. She never did anything and then the one time she did do something and go away for six months and change her life, it made her itchy and miserable. Metaphorically itchy, she wasn't actually itchy. She glanced around and saw Jen scribbling something in her notebook and then look up at Joey. Jen smiled. Joey smiled.

Joey's life was so weird, she was good friends with Jen Lindley.

Pacey raised his hand and gave a semi-cogent answer. Actually, it was fully coherent and a smart observation. More of Joey's life's weirdness. Jen was playing with her bracelet, which Joey knew Dawson had made in some burst of craftiness. Somehow, incredibly more weirdness. Joey was actually happy for both of them.

After school, she was literally on Jen Lindley's bed, and they weren't even studying. They were talking. About their girly girl feelings. Joey said, "I feel like everybody's growing up faster than me. But I also feel like everybody's just a little naive."

"You've been to Paris," Jen said, sticking out her tongue.

"I know," Joey said. Her voice sounded so whiny. "I didn't say my feelings were logical or right or even made sense."

"We should do something," Jen said. "I have a plan."

So two weeks later, Joey was sitting up front in Pacey's "borrowed" Witter wagon while Pacey drove and Jen and her friend Jack sat in the back. They were driving to Rhode Island to get tattoos. It was a horrible plan. Joey was going to spend a hundred dollars she didn't have and should have used on books or put in her savings account to be permanently scarred. Jen was the only one who could have talked her into it.

Jack said, "This is exciting, we never do things like this." Jack and his sister Andie were somehow part of their social group, another thing Joey had missed when she was in France. Jack was nice. Joey had never known anyone who was out and gay at Capeside High, she admired his courage. He was obviously a better person than she was.

"We can't afford to do things like this more than once a year," Pacey said. She wondered where he'd gotten the money to do it. Pacey didn't have a part-time job anymore. He spent a lot of time studying which was a foreign concept in relation to Pacey.

Jen said, "Getting tattoos is one of those once in a blue moon things."

Joey said, "And this place isn't, like, a den of drugs and biker gangs?"

Jen said, "I did my research. I asked one of the girls in my gym class who has a really nice tattoo. And I asked another one. And I went on aol."

"Well, that's incredibly thorough. I look forward to my hepatitis C," Jack said.

"We'll be fine," Pacey said. "And if there's drugs, just don't take any. If there's a biker gang, we'll let Joey yell at them. No man can survive that."

"That is not true," Joey said. "You should know that, I yell at you all the time."

"And I'm walking dead," Pacey said. "I'm a zoooombie." He reached for her with one hand. She batted it away.

"We'll be fine," Jen said.

Jack said, "We should all listen to Jen."

Joey found herself smiling, surprised that she was reassured about the entire world of feelings just because Jen Lindley said so. Weird fucking world.

The place they went wasn't as gross looking as Joey had imagined. Jen had called ahead, so she knew to make sure all four of them had decent fake IDs they said they were over eighteen. Joey's said she was twenty and lived in East Denis, MA. Close enough, she thought. She pushed over her own drawing of what she wanted. The tattoo guy who was doing Joey and then Jen looked it over, made a few suggestions and then Joey was pulling up her skirt. She, like Jen, had figured that something on her upper hip was least likely to be seen by anyone outside of current boyfriend (for Jen) or future boyfriend (Joey).

It was totally painful, more than Joey had expected and she had expected a lot. The tattoo guy said, "You're doing great," which made Joey smile. Because she was just that easy. Tell her she was doing well, Joey Potter would always blush and take the compliment badly.

She looked at the red puffy skin when he was done. "I like it," she said, surprised.

"Good thing," the guy said. He named his price which was less than Joey expected, she gave him all the money she'd budgeted because everyone liked a tip. He gave her a whole sheet of directions and put a bandage like thing on it.

Joey watched Jen getting hers for a bit and then wandered over to where Pacey was getting his. Jack was standing outside the partition, his bandage peeking up over his jeans. "Went for the hip as well?"

"I go shirtless a lot," Jack said. "Aren't we all getting them in the same place?"

"I don't know, where's Pacey getting his? What's he getting?" She started to look around the partition. "Can I come in?"

That tattoo guy huffed. Pacey said, "Fine." He was gritting his teeth. Pacey was getting his tattoo on his hip, so higher up than Joey's, but basically in the same area.

"No one will see it, even if you wear a speedo," Joey said.

"I will never wear a speedo. Or tidy whities," Pacey said.

"Thanks so much for the update on your underwear choices," Joey said. "I'm going to immediately forget it."

"Ha," Pacey said. "You're going to picture it all night."

Joey came around the bed like thing Pacey was on. Pacey was getting a boat, one of the stylized ones from the walls in the lobby. It seemed very Pacey to Joey. She liked it. "It looks good, Pacey."

"Cool," Pacey said. "Let me know if you want to see it when it heals."

Joey rolled her eyes.

Then they were done and everyone had paid and they went to twenty four hour grocery store and bought the specific lotion they were supposed to use. Jen and Joey went into the lobby of the cheap motel they picked and booked a room. Two full beds. Joey said, "Me and Jen will take a bed. You guys share one."

"No," Jack said. "I've slept in the same bed with Pacey and with Jen and I'm not sleeping with Pacey again."

"That's a little insulting," Pacey said. "I'm attractive, right?"

"You're a hunk," Jen said. "But you move a lot when you sleep and you're tall and you're flailing limbs in the middle of the night. Nothing personal."

"Hey," Joey said. "Why do I get stuck with flailing limb boy?"

"You just do," Jack said, already stretching out on the same bed Jen was sitting on.

They settled into their respective beds, with a lot of grumbling from Joey. She fell asleep way more quickly than she thought she would. Then she woke up and the room was dark. She heard breathing around her. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Pacey wasn't in bed. She wondered if he'd flailed himself off the bed. She heard the toilet flush and then she could sort of see Pacey lumbering over in the dark. He got in bed and she whispered, "Thanks for waking me up."

"Whatever," Pacey whispered. He shifted around in the bed and she definitely felt parts of him against her butt.

She didn't complain. He shifted away. She clutched the sheet a little harder. There was something wrong if she was this turned on by Pacey Witter briefly pressing his skinny body against hers. Not wrong like bad or immoral, but wrong like this was Pacey and he was not attractive to Joey. Except he was. He really was.

If she'd been home, she would have locked the door to her room and gotten intimate with herself. It was a lousy euphemism for masturbating but masturbating was a stupid word.

Two days later, she was at Jen's again, but they were both putting lotion on their tattoos. Jen's was a stylized rose with thorns dripping blood. "I, too, love the song library of Poison," Joey said.

"Roses having thorns was a motif of dangerous beauty long before that horrendous song," Jen said.

"What did Dawson think of it?" He hadn't said anything to Joey, but that didn't mean much. He almost never talked to Joey about Jen things. Even though they were all friends. She wasn't super upset about it.

"He hasn't seen it yet," Jen said. "We just haven't had the chance."

Joey sighed. "I find myself in the horrifying position of wishing I had a boyfriend."

"Really?" Jen looked excited. She probably was.

"It's kind of gross to realize I'm sixteen and I've never had a boyfriend," Joey said.

"Did you go on dates in Paris?"

"Not really," Joey said. She blushed. "I made out with a few people at parties, but not actual dates."

"People?" Jen said it like she knew what Joey was hiding. But Joey was not ready to admit to anyone and especially not Jen that she had once had an extremely hot make out with a girl from Vermont.

"But not actually dating. I mean, first kiss is done. First time breasts were groped that I wanted them to be groped done," Joey said. "But I'd like to hang out and see movies and have study dates or something."

"And get more than your breasts felt up?"

"That, too," Joey said.

"Is there someone you have your eye on? Someone with a tattoo?" Jen was doing something with her eyebrows that was probably supposed to convey knowledge.

"Shut up," Joey said. "Okay, please don't take this as me walking out on your ridiculous assertion, but I do have to go."

She dodged that conversation and the next and so on until Jen mostly gave up. Joey was pretty sure she was betraying feminism with her whole waah waah I need a man repeating motif.

Andie and Jack were nice and good adds to her social circle. Andie seemed to be really glad to have Pacey in her social circle. She was probably better suited for Pacey anyway.

Joey hung out with Pacey a lot. "You know, we could ask other people to study with us. I bet I know someone who would love it."

Pacey looked over at her and then back at his book. "Not interested," Pacey said.

"Really? Why not? She's nice and smart and she seems perfect for you," Joey said.

"Perfect, eh? How do you know that?" Pacey still hadn't looked away from his book. Joey was kind of stuck on his arms. When did Pacey get attractive arms?

"She's your age, first. She's smart and pleasant and you didn't grow up with her-"

Pacey finally looked up. He said, "Why is not knowing someone since they wore underpants with ruffles-"

"You pulled down my pants!"

"Accidentally," Pacey said. "Just because we live in a minuscule town where nearly everyone we know knows every gruesome detail of the first fifteen years of our lives doesn't mean we can't occasionally date someone like that." He grinned at her. "You know you want me."

"No, I don't," she said. "Not much."

Pacey, oddly, let her comment sit. He just went back to studying. It was so irritating.

It was even more irritating that he didn't even bring it up for the next two weeks. She couldn't complain to Jen so she just had to suffer in silence. It was distracting, being attacked by Pacey being attractive. It felt like an attack. She wrote scathing things in her journal and it didn't help at all.

Finally she just went to his house. No one was home besides Pacey so he answered the door when she knocked. He said, "Hey, Jo."

"Pacey, you are driving me insane," she said, and marched past him. "What is wrong with you? I admit I'm attracted to you to my deepest shame and you do nothing? Am I ugly or something?"

"Of course not," Pacey said. He reached for her but pulled back before he touched her. He said, "I just, damn it, Jo. I want you to make the first move. I know you and I want you to make the first move."

"For your ego?" She wasn't quite livid, she was more confused.

"No, because, because you, me, we've known each other for years and we are both classic overthinkers and I just want you to be sure, okay?"

He was the most infuriating person and all she wanted to do was make out with him. She said, "I sort of hate you. Can we make out now?"

"Oh, absolutely," Pacey said. This time he touched her as he reached out and did the straight out of a movie sweeping her up in his arms. He was a fantastic kisser.


End file.
